Well, autofs is running, but my needs are simple. I use it to access the cdrom and floppy drives, but I have had it configured to access nfs shares.
"How about a detailed step by step on how to set it up?"
The script at
http://mariner.cs.ucdavis.edu/slackw...ware/rc.autofs should be copied to /etc/rc.d/rc.autofs. The permissions should read rwxr xr x which can be accomplished with # chmod 755 /etc/rc.d/rc.autofs.
An entry should be made in /etc/rc.d/rc.local like:
# === start autofs
/etc/rc.d/rc.autofs start
or perhaps:
# === start autofs
. /etc/rc.d/rc.autofs
The file /etc/auto.master should be created. In my simple case, the file reads like this:
# /etc/auto.master
#
/mnt/rd /etc/auto.rd --timeout=3
Since the mount "key" is rd, I must also create a file /etc/auto.rd, which, in my case, reads like this:
# /etc/auto.rd
#
floppy -fstype=vfat,sync,user,umask=002,gid=users :/dev/fd0
cdrom -fstype=iso9660,ro :/dev/hdc
That is the complete configuration as far as I recall. There are no corresponding entries in /etc/fstab, but there is no need to delete or comment out /etc/fstab entries for the floppy and cdrom either (they might be handy sometime). If you do a google search and read the manual page (man autofs; man auto.master; man automount) you will probably see how to adjust the configuration for your purposes. Probably the most trying thing is the mount options for the floppy drive, since vfat is the usual filesystem.
To use autofs, one simply enters a command such as:
$ ls /mnt/rd/cdrom
or
$ cp ~/important.doc /mnt/rd/floppy
The attempt to access the mount "key" triggers the automounting. After the timeout period has elapsed, the mount will expire and the cdrom or floppy can be removed.
Now, what would really add to the usefulness would be incorporating this into filemanager programs. I use xfce often, and I think it could be done there fairly easily. If you use desktop icons, you could make one with a command such as "xffm /mnt/rd/floppy" and that will open the file manager with the floppy drive shown.
I hope that helps.